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The Malleus Maleficarum, [a] usually translated as the Hammer of Witches, [3] [b] is the best known treatise about witchcraft. [6] [7] It was written by the German Catholic clergyman Heinrich Kramer (under his Latinized name Henricus Institor) and first published in the German city of Speyer in 1486.
The word witch is over a thousand years old: Old English formed the compound wiccecræft from wicce ('witch') and cræft ('craft'). [50] The masculine form was wicca ('male sorcerer'). [ 51 ] In early modern Scots , the word warlock came to be used as the male equivalent of witch (which can be male or female, but is used predominantly for females).
In colloquial modern English, the word witch is particularly used for women. [35] A male practitioner of magic or witchcraft is more commonly called a 'wizard', or sometimes, 'warlock'. When the word witch is used to refer to a member of a neo-pagan tradition or religion (such as Wicca), it can refer to a person of any gender. [citation needed]
Witchcraft in the colonies was the alleged power one had to use supernatural abilities to influence people or events. [17] In these early times, witchcraft was used to explain events that otherwise could not be understood. [18] People were killed over these accusations when in reality they held no real merit at all.
The Formicarius, written 1436–1438 by Johannes Nider during the Council of Florence and first printed in 1475, is the second book ever printed to discuss witchcraft (the first book being Alphonso de Spina's Fortalitium Fidei [1]). Nider dealt specifically with witchcraft in the fifth section of the book.
Witchcraft in Anglo-Saxon England (Old English: wiċċecræft) refers to the belief and practice of magic by the Anglo-Saxons between the 5th and 11th centuries AD in Early Mediaeval England. Surviving evidence regarding Anglo-Saxon witchcraft beliefs comes primarily from the latter part of this period, after England had been Christianised ...
Compendium Maleficarum is a witch-hunter's manual written in Latin by Francesco Maria Guazzo, and published in Milan (present-day Italy) in 1608. [1]It discusses witches' pacts with the devil, and detailed descriptions of witches’ powers and poisons.
The term is the same as the normal English word "Sabbath" (itself a transliteration of Hebrew "Shabbat", the seventh day, on which the Creator rested after creation of the world), referring to the witches' equivalent to the Christian day of rest; a more common term was "synagogue" or "synagogue of Satan" [31] possibly reflecting anti-Jewish ...